


jurisprudence 2: DOCKET TO ME

by daytura, gamblignant8



Series: Jurisprudence [2]
Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Drugs, F/F, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Other, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, a threatening bug appears, i start it with a research paper IM SORRY, political arguments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-06 05:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daytura/pseuds/daytura, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamblignant8/pseuds/gamblignant8
Summary: MSPA Reader settles into moirallegiance with Tyzias but receives a scare. Stelsa Sezyat's worried about her matesprit's revolutionary zeal.





	1. Chapter 1

> **_An Examination of Historical Prosecution of Crimes Against Society in the Pintal-Kaleka-Gihart Trials and the Application of Precedent to the Modern Alternian Legal System Which Begins with an Overview of Contemporary Planetside Caste Structure Essential to Reader Understanding of the Context and Continues To Et Al._ **
> 
> by Tyzias Entykk
> 
> Few remember the brief reign as heiress of Taluna Pintal. One of the at least 150 potential tyrian challengers to Her Imperious Condescension’s long reign, her early life was a familiar tale for those versed in heiress studies — assemblage of domestic power and highblood allies in anticipation of her duel for leadership.
> 
> The ending of her story, however, is a significant divergence from known Alternian precedent. Heiress Taluna and her allies did not meet their ends at the prongs of a 2x3dent. Instead, their tale ended in a courtblock. The Pintal-Kaleka-Gihart trials led to a significant restructuring of planetside aristocracy and sent a powerful message: The Empress and the Empire are not served by the reckless indulgence of a Heiress. The justice of His Honorable Tyranny applies to all.
> 
> The Pintal-Kaleka-Gihart trials are frequently left undiscussed even in the most comprehensive Alternian legal histories. However, historical record of courtblock proceedings are exempt from Imperial confidentiality and redaction laws (Mopine p. 81). The lack of records of the trials are not, as is commonly believed, due to illegality. Rather, the destruction of numerous sources marks a pattern of vigilantism by allies of the executed parties in an attempt to prevent the embarrassment of association with portions of the purged kleptocracy. This vigilantism extended beyond destruction of historical record — most of the aspiring legislacerators and bureaucretins involved in the prosecution of these cases did not survive to adulthood. (Catuno p. 417) 
> 
> It is important for servants of the Empress’s justice, then, to separate fact from fear-mongering. Far from being a black stain on our laws and history, an argument can be made that all trolls should pay greater heed to the trials as a triumph of His Honorable Tyranny, an example of the persistence of law even in the most desperate scenarios of corruption, abuse and crimes against Alternian society.
> 
> **A brief summary of Alternian caste structure in the mid-600s SE**
> 
> Taluna Pintal was hatched 323 sweeps ago, in 646 SE. At the time, Alternian landbound governance on most of the planet’s surface was organized in an explicitly feudal system — all but outlaw trolls olive-blooded and below were serfs on the land, peasants, or indentured. Even highblood castes were more rigorously set in their adolescent and young-adult roles.
> 
> Violetbloods and their highblood advisors, officers, naval commanders employed lowbloods directly as sailors, laborers, and well-trained retinues that kept their purple and cobalt vassals in line.
> 
> Purplebloods served as a brutal force of terrestrial killers, a preparatory role for the trials of front-line subjugglator duty. They ruled over urban tragagglomerations (which became cities like Outglut today) from their church thrones. Purplebloods rarely had need for lowblood assistance, able to tear through battlefields and single-handedly change the course of entire wars.
> 
> Cobaltbloods ruled the countryside as a proxy for their seadwelling lieges, occupying castles and estates. Lowblood peasants worked the land as subsistence farmers—

THE ALIEN

Huh, pretty similiar to your planet’s feudal system, you think, pausing mid-sentence to reach for your mug — Tyzias leaves half-empty ones all over the hive, but there’s always some set aside for you, a little gesture that makes your heart do FRIENDSHIP loops.

You wanted friendship from your adventures on this planet, and your moirallegiance with Tyzias has delivered warmly. You suppose some things about moirallegance could be seen as unusual for friendships on your planet…You will admit to slight flustered leaps of confusion when you’re done discussing your feelings and she ends your conversation with a kiss on the cheek.

But! You’ve rapidly been coming around to this more touchy and exclusive method of friend-having, once you unpack a bit of the cultural baggage about why exactly being affectionate with your friends took you time to get used to. Sometimes you just gotta cuddle your homies, you’ve realized. _Dammmmn right_ , Tyz had said when you’d mentioned that in one of your feelings jams, and then she — all well over six feet of her — wrapped you up in a lazy hug.

And now you realize you’ve been daydreaming about Tyzias instead of reading the draft of the paper of hers she’s been driving herself crazy writing. You’ve gotten better rapidly — too rapidly, according to a skeptical Mallek — at written Alternian, so it’s not so much the language barrier as it is the fact that you wouldn’t be able to focus on 40 pages of legal writing in English, either. At least not without more caffeine. You get up from the table where Tyzias is sitting across from you, slumped over and napping with her face down in the placemat after she handed you this draft and start a pot of late-night coffee brewing. Social change is around-the-clock work, when you live with Tyzias Entyyk.

While the bitter bean fluid percolates, you take a stroll to the load gaper. See, you called it a load gaper. You’re basically the secretary of goddamn state when it comes to fitting in on alien planets. You have diplomatic immunity and can let the parking tickets just pile up on— _holy shitting fuck you just opened the bathroom door and that is a scorpion-looking thing the size of a RAT._

You scream, unwittingly piercingly, and slam the door shut as quickly as you opened it, hearing the thing scuttling inside the ablutionblock. Your heart is racing, and you hear quick footfalls beating down the hallway as Tyzias runs toward you. Something like urgency has flashed across her tired face, a look more 'up' than you’ve seen the unflappable girl give before. You notice she’s in such a rush she didn’t even pick up her mug.

She’s breathing quick when she gets to you, looking like she’s ready to get in a fistfight with whatever made you scream, an unfamiliar sharpness in her eyes. You are suddenly overcome with embarrassment in regards to your potential overreaction to seeing a bug, and you communicate that to her as soon as you get your words back. She relaxes instantly, gives you that little half-smirk, and leans back with a hand in her hair, seemingly unsure of what to do with her hands without a mug to sip from in the gap between words. She laughs a bit. Well, she forces a bit of air out through her nose in a quiet approximation of amusement.

“Yeah, we get those sometimes. Stinger can’t pierce troll skin, but maybe it could get you. One sec.” She walks at her usual leisurely pace back towards the table and returns with her huge spiky mallet, gesturing for you to move aside with a flick of the back of her free hand in the air. “Please stand by while pest control in engaged,” she says, flat-voiced, and opens the bathroom door and strides in with a totally mundane kind of confidence.

You elect not to watch the proceedings, despite your front row ticket, squinting your eyes shut as you hear the mallet get brought down with a hard report. But instead of the disgusting squelch you were expecting, you instead hear a muttered, “ah fuck,” and the skittering of little legs towards you in a panic.

* * *

STELSA

She’s late. Again. You’d been working like hell, reviewing three or four full audit reports an hour all day, just to make sure you were done by midnight for your personal appointment. You loved Tyzias, your Zizi, so much it hurt. As it happens, it especially hurt these last few weeks.

You’d been happy to learn that Tyzias had pale prospects — she was loathe to admit it, but she needed an outlet for feelings that wasn’t just you. The most obvious thing in the world, you thought, with just how much goes on in her head. No one troll could keep up.

Your troubles started after that. She was getting sloppy — you’re not _stupid_ , you’d known she was up to something in her long hours of study before it. But she was a smart girl, just curious. She wasn’t going to get into trouble with whatever she was spending time poring over. Then you started finding things that could get her _culled_.

You see, she’s always been interested in learning more. You’d first met her a whole three sweeps ago in a school-fed mock trial. The two of you were paired up on the same case — one based on the famous trial of some old gamblignant, a story Tyz dove into with a starry-eyed enthusiasm. You were a bit smitten right away, frankly, and often engineered reasons to be at the bookhive the same nights she was. Over that second-autumn and the adjoining winter, you’d brought her a mug of coffee every time you fixed one, an excuse to sit beside her and read. It wasn’t until the spring that she first told you that she actually couldn’t stand the stuff, but she just appreciated your company. You brought her water after that.

In all your time studying with Tyzias Entykk, you’d begun to notice a strange thing. She’d _often_ , so often as to have a reputation for it, forget things, her jacket typically being a better predictor of where she was earlier in the day than where she was now. Folders full of papers that the older teals — gone to the Ordeals now, with your class next — would pore over, searching for anything that could get them an advantage in your cutthroat school life. But there was one book that _never_ got left behind, full of colorful little tabs marking spots within. You’d never seen her so much as leave it on a table out of her sight, no matter the circumstance or surrounding. Even once you’d worked up the nerve to ask her on a few dates and were often meeting at each others’ hives to study or, on a rare not-swamped night, watch movies you’d picked out, she’d never leave the book alone for long.

You loved her already, then, and you respected her ability to keep a secret. You both knew how important it was on this world to succeed and to survive. Being hatched teal put you under the spotlight. Being keepers of the Empress’s law had extremely high standards, either for aspiring legislacerators like her or for acounterrors like yourself. You never wanted to be a weakness for her or add to the risk of her life. What the two of you had started to share was more important than any concerns you might have with you — your society’s — lot in life.

So when she left the book by the ‘cupe one day when she’d gone home, you knew it had to be on purpose.

You stared at it, then, for what felt like a lesser eternity, pusher racing. The cover was of rough, worn leather. It was _old_ , this book, and that very fact frightened you. New was safe, the glossy pages of freshly-printed textbooks full of information you needed to know and none you didn't.

That was weeks ago. You’d pretended you didn’t see, but you saw enough. Sufferer. Rebellion. If she’s been putting even a little of this in her papers...No. No time to be upset. You’ll find a way through this, you always have. You just have to _work_.

If Tyzias wasn't going to make your arranged lunch date, you might as well spend the hour double-checking the books of an especially-busy violetblood that had contracted you, already looking to make investments for his future leading an Imperial fleet. Money talks when you're thrown into adulthood and asked to build a functioning naval detachment from scratch to endear yourself to the Condesce. ( _Lord protect her_ , you think, automatically.)

But you can't focus. You get up to pace, to think, to plan through this. You take a first step across the room, footfall landing with a _knock knock knock!_

Wait. _Knock knock knock_?

Oh. The door. You lean out of the respiteblock to the cozy office and see Tyzias letting herself in, and that doesn't give you the simple feeling of warmth it should. But then you see who she's got with her, and you immediately forget your animosity and nerves. It's that sweet little alien, and they've got their leg sloppily bandaged up, spot of strange scarlet blood showing through. Your hands cover your mouth as you gasp and immediately rush to their side.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Tyzias starts explaining quietly, “scurrystinger incident.”

“Oh, darlings, I understand,” you say, already beginning to go into the effluent cavalcade of words you spill into whenever social occasions call, “please do come in and rest on the couch, oh my dear, does it hurt a great deal? Let me get you some bitter leaf juice? Do you need anything for the pain? Let me get you another pillow.”

* * *

THE ALIEN

You’d find responding to Stelsa’s barrage of questions difficult even at the best of times, but you’re especially struggling for coherence now. You’re clouded by the throbbing pain of alien scorpion sting.

Also, you’re _astronomically_ high.

You plop down on the couch and, smiling dumbly, wave your bug-vape-thing in a vague expression of inability. Tyzias pipes up for you.

“Yeah, we’re good on pain meds. I carried them to Cirava Hermod’s...bummed some relief off of them. Figured I’d bring them here to make sure there’s no, like, complications.”

Tyzias and Stelsa fuss over you a bit, but you’re pretty gone, just making little noises of thanks when Stelsa provides you an ottoman to elevant the leg with and a cup of tea. It smells like hibiscus, and you giggle to yourself as you think it’s probably made from some flower that eats children.

That normally wouldn’t be funny to you, but it’s been a long day, okay? You’re doing everything you can to keep feeling canonical. Canonical? You meant _fine_.

You sip the tea and let visions of causality and the consequence of choice slip through your calmly buzzing mind, anything to distract you from the pain. It feels like hours, pain slowly throbbing away like the ticking of a clock. A thousand clocks, all ticking in turn in each of your nerves, keeping time with your heartbeat.

> A heartbeat that’s miraculous. Your survival should’ve been impossible, but these trolls...for all the terror and tyranny around them, you’ve found them each at their best, learned their shared fears, connected some and learned with them. You’ve done more than scrape out survival here. You’ve _thrived_.

> A heartbeat that’s been cut short in violence. Your survival was impossible, and these trolls...you’ve found yourself friendless and dying time after time, found each of them at their worst, learned to fear the terror and tyranny around them, broken bonds and broken bones. You were a fool for thinking you could ever scrape out survival here. You’ve _failed_. You’re in _danger_ , the voice inside your head yells, sounding like it’s from another room, frantic with tears, _you’re going to get culled and leave me all alone_!

Wait. That’s Stelsa. Yelling, and crying, and Tyzias’s voice offering shaky interruptions.

Your reverie is snapped. Your head’s again above water. As always, two options make themselves clear to you like paths in the road.

_Ch. 2_ — [Let them work it out. The world’s spinning a bit too much.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825981/chapters/39891906)

_Ch. 3_ — **Stumble over and intervene.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buckle up


	2. Let them work it out. The world’s spinning a bit too much.

TYZIAS

You grab a warm blanket and tuck your little alien moirail in on the loungeplank. _Poor thing_ , part of you thinks, and _poor me_ , the other part thinks. Poor you, because you and Stelsa no longer have mutual doting as an excuse to avoid discussing your book. She’d kissed you on the back of the head and said she’d see you in her respiteblock.

You look over at the vape sitting next to your passed-out alien. Look. You don’t indulge much. But this is absolutely a situation that calls for saying _screwwww it_ and taking a fat fuckin’ rip.

That you do, and in the stinging and warming focus to not cough like an amateur you find a brief respite from the tangled mess inside of you. You hold it and feel a molasses-like calming sensation creep through you and, damn, you really wish you could stay right in these few seconds for the rest of the night. Instead, you breathe out a great colorful cloud with a big sigh.

You push open the door to Stelsa’s room like you’re pushing the marble doors of the courtblock and facing His Honorable Tyranny himself.

To your surprise, she’s not waiting there, with arms crossed, angrily expecting an explanation of the book you finally left for her. She’s smiling. It’s an offer, you know that, and a generous one. It’s immediately and nonverbally communicated that you can pretend she didn’t see anything and she’d go along with it. You slip effortlessly into your usual banter.

“That’s a good look for you,” you say, a little sardonically, setting your mug down on the table by the loveseat and settling in to lay on her lap with form that would get you the gold at the Slouching Olympics.

“Thanks,” she says, slipping your glasses off and setting them carefully aside next to hers. “Gym shorts, fluffy socks, and old t-shirts are ALL in this year, it’s all over the fashion magazines, you know.”

You give a little snort of laughter. “Of course I know, I keep up with all the _haute couture_. It takes a lot of study to be this fashionable.” You lazily gesture to the same simple getup you always have on, and she giggles, a goofy little trill that’s one of the things that you love about her. You settle into looking at each other for a little while, her hand at the base of your horn, playing with your hair.

It would be so easy.

It would be so easy to kiss her now and spend another quiet evening in the comfort of her presence. You could keep hiding this _thing_ that’s consumed you, this duty, this obligation.

It would be so easy, but you can’t. The choice got made a long time ago. You climbed a ladder into a relic of an older Empire, a more vulnerable one, and a starry-eyed little alien listened to you and told you that things could be better.

Looking out on your planet, you could _feel_ the bonds between people, weaving in the space between hives, buzzing with potential. Something bigger than you, but unlike the way the Empire made you feel, the largeness of it was comforting. In that moment, and every night since, you’ve wanted nothing more than to harness that power, connect people, find the right words in the right order...

It consumes you. You can’t stop that feeling. Looking into her eyes, you frown a bit, and she does too. You’ve known each other for sweeps, and you both know what you meant by it. She closes her eyes and nods a bit. You sit up next to her and put a hand on her back. She leans into you in a half-embrace.

“We have to talk about it,” you say. “We needed to a while ago.”

“I know,” she says. And she hands you back your glasses and mug, knowing you like to pace while you talk, a simple act of memory and kindness that threatens again to melt your resolve in this moment.

This is the girl that’s been the best part of your days since you met her so long ago, since you passed notes and little comics back and forth to each other in schoolfeeding sessions, since you kissed her the first time in between the third and fourth rows of the legal encyclopedia section of the bookhive, right in front of volume M-Z of _Iopara’s Almanac of Western Alternian Contract Law, Third Edition_.

Your first act of rebellion against the Empire was stealing that exact volume from the bookhive so you’d always have the memory on your own shelf. But it wasn’t — and won’t be — your last, so you begin to walk back and forth and talk with her, still sitting and watching you go.

TYZIAS: commmme on. you’re a good person, stels, you see it. you pretend not to, but you do. you see all the death, all the friends that just disappear one day  
TYZIAS: you see that wwwwe’re all just preparing for dealing mmmmore death  
TYZIAS: that all wwwwe’re doing is providing legitimmmmacy to an inherently absurd systemmmm of servituide

STELSA: WE’RE ALIVE, AREN’T WE? WE HAVE EACH OTHER, WE CAN HELP PEOPLE, BUT WE HAVE TO STAY ALIVE TO DO THAT...AND THAT’S ALREADY ENOUGH WORK WITHOUT US INVITING DRONES STRAIGHT TO OUR FRONT DOOR.  
STELSA: I’M NOT BLIND, DARLING, I KNOW YOU THINK I’M BEING IGNORANT I KNOW YOU THINK IT’S SELF SERVING BUT I’M JUST TRYING TO DO WHAT’S BEST FOR US  
STELSA: WHAT’S SAFE FOR US  
STELSA: WE NEED TO BOTH HAVE—

TYZIAS: discipline? that’s wwwwhat you wwwwant mmmme to have?  
TYZIAS: restraint?  
TYZIAS: wwwwhat about the wwwway trizza acts says ‘restraint’ to you  
TYZIAS: look  
TYZIAS: let’s say that you *are* a believer in this social order  
TYZIAS: tell mmmme howwww its served by blowwwwing up a neighborhood for better lighting in a *selfie*.  
TYZIAS: look mmmme in the eye and say that does any good for anybody.  
TYZIAS: that doesn’t mmmmake you safer. that doesn’t mmmmake mmmme safer.  
TYZIAS: and wwwwe’re lucky.

She laughs, and it’s not her usual bubbly one. It’s a cold knife of a laugh.

TYZIAS: dont laugh, stels, i really cant handle that right nowwww, i knowwww this is a fight but wwwwe’re still lucky

STELSA: YOU’VE JUST GOTTEN SO IRRESPONSIBLE LATELY AND IT’S HAPPENING SO FAST AND I DIDN’T THINK YOU’D BE WILLING TO THROW IT ALL AWAY JUST TO TRY AND DEPOSE A HEIRESS IT’S NOT LIKE THERE’S NOT GOING TO BE ANOTHER RIGHT AFTER HER ACTING EXACTLY THE SAME

TYZIAS: not right after  
TYZIAS: five, six swwwweeps, mmmmaybe  
TYZIAS: but think about wwwwhat that mmmmeans for our generation  
TYZIAS: look around us all of us are on a collision course wwwwith trizza’s challenge for the crowwwwn  
TYZIAS: a challenge that wwwwill surely fail  
TYZIAS: and leave wwwwhichever of our friends she’s handpicked for her little excursion  
TYZIAS: extremmmmely fuckin dead  
TYZIAS: if there’s no trizza there’s no challenge  
TYZIAS: wwwwe all have a chance to get off this planet  
TYZIAS: and start trying to fix things out there  
TYZIAS: and wwwwhoever’s next wwwwill be remmmminded wwwwhat happens if they act like her  
TYZIAS: it wwwwill mmmmean sommmmething  
TYZIAS: for the trolls that commmme after us  
TYZIAS: for

You look back at the door.

TYZIAS: for those of us who cant leave here

STELSA: YOU SAY YOU’RE THINKING OF THE FUTURE BUT I READ WHAT YOU WROTE AND IF YOU THINK YOU’RE GUARANTEEING ONE FOR ANY OF US WITH THIS PAN-ADDLING SCHEME YOU HAVE ANOTHER THING COMING DARLING YOU’RE IN DANGER, ZIZI! YOU’RE GOING TO _GET CULLED_ AND _LEAVE ME ALL ALONE_!

Stelsa always shouts. She was hatched into the universe with a vigor that guaranteed she’d leave her mark. Volume control didn’t come with that. But it’s sheer enthusiasm and energy that usually suffuses her voice. It’s not ever _yelling_.

That _was_. And it hangs there in the air like the fart of a purpleblood executioner’s whoopie cushion. You lean against the wall and hang your head.

“I’m tired, Stels, tired at a level deeper than I think you can handle. I can’t do it. I can’t exist in this monstrous fuckin thing that’s gonna swallow me whole. It doesn’t matter how much I sleep, I’m _tired_. I’m going to be tired until I _do something_.”

You’re not looking at her. Tears are welling a bit at the corner of your eye. You tell yourself it’s because you’re high, not because of the feeling that you’re crossing a point of no return. You’re changing, and Stelsa can’t love the Tyzias you are now.

“Maybe I will get culled. Maybe I will.” You try to keep your voice steady. “But I...have to.” You finally look up at her. She looks afraid, which is worse than any other look she could be wearing.

“I could give up and fall in your lap and forget like so many times before. But you’re not...I can’t change myself to keep this. I’ll never forgive myself.”

A pause sits in the air. Stelsa’s lower lip is threatening to give. Just as you’re about to break the silence with a _this is it, I guess_ , she breaks again. But she’s not yelling or rambling. She’s speaking deliberately and quietly in a way that’s jarring and nearly unrecognizable.

“You’re being very stupid, Tyzzi. I read your book. I read it. This ‘Sufferer,’ all his disciples, they all died forgotten.” You start to interject but she cuts you off with a raised finger and starts to pick up pace. “No, you will _not interrupt me_ this time, Tyzias Entykk, you will listen to me! Do you think I’m _stupid_? Do you think I _want_ to feed this beast? This thing that barely tolerates my beliefs out of some bargain? Zizi, I _know_ what happens when you stand up to this. Do you think this, whatever suicide mission you’ve got — trying to get an _heiress_ killed, G*d what is wrong with you — do you think this ends with anything but all our blocks in flames? Your matesprit, your moirail, all your friends all _dead_? Honey...WHY ON THIS TERRIBLE SUN-SCORCHED PLANET DO YOU THINK YOU CAN WIN?”

You wish your faith didn’t run deeper than your love. But it does. So instead of what you’d do even a week ago — instead of listening — you say something else.

“Because I’m getting rid of the things that are tearing me down. And the trolls who don’t believe in me. And you don’t.”

Immediately, you regret this. You wish you didn’t say it. As you stomp toward the door and hear the pitiful gasp of sadness coming from the love of your life behind you, you, most of all, wish you didn’t mean it.

As you cross the office and see the alien on the couch, you can’t bear to wake them. They might be able to help Stelsa where you can’t. You grab your jacket from beside them and step out into the warm night, firing off a text that says i’ll be at the hive. grab mmmmy book, and you’re gone. You have more to write.

* * *

THE ALIEN

You awaken in a haze. Holy hell, your mouth is dry. The clock on the wall says its only been a few hours since you drifted off. You don’t hear any arguing, so you don’t feel too bad about your inability to help out earlier.

You get up, feeling like you only have a sort of tangential grasp on how your muscles work and nearly buckling like a baby giraffe. You press your ear to Stelsa’s respiteblock door and are greeted with only silence, so you decide to brave entry. They’re probably just reading and waiting for you.

Oh no.

_Ch. 1_ — [RESTART GAME?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825981/chapters/39496879)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to bee for the ending cards, you a real one. read their very cool comic [diceborn](https://db.mspfa.com)


End file.
